


Real

by tarigwaemir (troisroyaumes)



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Community: blind_go, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-20
Updated: 2007-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troisroyaumes/pseuds/tarigwaemir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cyberpunk!AU where go is played online in virtual reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real

> (21:05:31) **zelda:** hey what are *u* doing on this server? this is insei space  
>  (21:05:47) **toya_akira:** I heard you were the person to go to if I wanted information.  
>  (21:06:04) **zelda:** info bout what  
>  (21:06:22) **toya_akira:** Need I ask? What do you know about the entity known as _sai_?
> 
> (21:07:15) **zelda:** i wont talk here. pm-ing u the coords. meet me there.

Akira scrolled through the list of numbers and smiled. The location was more than a safe place to talk: it was a test of his abilities. He opened a new connection and leaped across several servers before he found the right network. The channel was locked--of course--and the position coordinates 'zelda' had given him did not contain a key. He triggered a bot to erase his tracks and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes and mentally ran through the numbers again.

"Oh. Clever." He typed in a command and ran a pet algorithm to unscramble the numbers. It resolved into a 361-digit number, which unlocked the channel.

> (21:31:09) **zelda:** u got here pretty fast  
>  (21:31:11) **zelda:** guess u really are hot shit  
>  (21:31:14) **toya_akira:** Your skills are not to be underestimated either. Encoding the key in the position was an elegant idea.  
>  (21:31:19) **zelda:** ya, us insei are stronger than u think :P  
>  (21:31:22) **zelda:** so u wanna know bout sai  
>  (21:31:29) **toya_akira:** I was told that you had spoken with him.  
>  (21:31:33) **zelda:** he pmed me once after a game  
>  (21:31:34) **zelda:** saying "im strong aint i"  
>  (21:31:36) **zelda:** pissed me off til i saw the rest of his games  
>  (21:31:38) **toya_akira:** He's never communicated directly with anyone else?  
>  (21:31:42) **zelda:** nope  
>  (21:31:44) **toya_akira:** Why you?  
>  (21:31:49) **zelda:** dunno  
>  (21:31:50) **zelda:** it was one of his earlier games  
>  (21:31:51) **zelda:** he looked like a n00b  
>  (21:31:52) **zelda:** but uve seen his games right? hes like a pro  
>  (21:31:55) **toya_akira:** He played against my father last month. On a private encrypted channel.  
>  (21:31:56) **zelda:** against toya_koyo???? is there a game record??  
>  (21:31:58) **toya_akira:** No. As far as I know, no one's seen the game. I wouldn't have known the game even took place if I hadn't been trying to track down my father.  
>  (21:32:05) **zelda:** track down toya_koyo? isnt he your *dad*  
>  (21:32:07) **toya_akira:** He disappeared a few weeks ago. Shortly after the game took place, as far as I can tell.  
>  (21:32:09) **zelda:** disappeared as in like  
>  (21:32:10) **toya_akira:** Physically disappeared. In realtime.
> 
> (21:32:26) **zelda:** shit  
>  (21:32:32) **zelda:** look i cant help u much but  
>  (21:32:33) **zelda:** don't let it get around  
>  (21:32:35) **zelda:** never talked bout it before  
>  (21:32:37) **zelda:** but this kid hs555  
>  (21:32:38) **zelda:** he plays sometimes  
>  (21:32:39) **zelda:** and i think he knows something bout sai  
>  (21:32:42) **toya_akira:** Your basis for this conjecture being...  
>  (21:32:43) **zelda:** play a game with him  
>  (21:32:44) **zelda:** ull see  
>  (21:32:48) **toya_akira:** Where can I find him?  
>  (21:32:50) **zelda:** dunno hes not an insei but u can probly find him on a game server  
>  (21:32:53) **toya_akira:** Is he good?  
>  (21:32:54) **zelda:** see for urself

His connection to the channel abruptly closed, and Akira was left staring at a blinking command prompt. He clenched his teeth.

"So. Did you find anything?"

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax as he turned around in his chair to face his visitor. "A clue. But it may turn out to be a red herring."

"Not very promising then. I told you the insei knew nothing." Ogata-san lit up a cigarette and inhaled. Akira grimaced.

"Out of the millions of rumors circulating about Sai, it's the only concrete lead I have." He looked down at his hands. "Ogata-san, Father didn't just walk out the door and fail to return. He turned off his computer after wiping all traces of his accounts and public game records. As if he never existed online at all. People are already starting to wonder about it."

"Are you certain it's because of the game with 'sai'?"

"What else could it _be_? There are no other anomalies. It's only pure luck that I stumbled across the challenge notice. If I'd waited a day later, I wouldn't have been able to retrieve it from the wiped memory at all."

Ogata-san looked skeptical. "Sensei would never have disappeared because of a single game against an amateur opponent."

"'sai' is no amateur opponent, Ogata-san. And there's one telling sign that I think even you can't dismiss as coincidence."

"Which is?"

"'sai' has disappeared too."

\---

> waitingforgogo -- **wheres the meijin** (532 comments) -- _last comment by_ eternal_summer  
>  xj2042 -- **looking for game record** (3 comments) -- _last comment by_ xj2042  
>  misosoup -- **sai...defeated???** (455 replies) -- _last comment by_ tesuji_guru 

Akira did not usually frequent the _igo_ forums, but lately he found himself reading them obsessively for news of 'sai' or his father. Already, the rumors had begun to spread: 'toya_koyo' was a living legend after all. His absence from the game servers was conspicuous, and people had begun to take notice.

Of course, Akira's own inquiries had added further fuel to the fire. He had been too frantic at first to be discreet, and now it was too late. The forums were buzzing with speculations about the mysterious disappearance of 'toya_koyo' and his last game with 'sai'.

Akira sighed and rubbed at his temples. At least no one on the forums seemed to have realized that his father had disappeared in realtime as well. The insei knew when to hold their tongues.

How could a man _vanish_ without a word? Did he have an accident--his heart had been troubling him lately--or was he attacked--Father was not without his enemies, especially online--or was he hiding from someone or being blackmailed or running away from a game gone wrong...

"Father wouldn't do that," Akira said out loud, startling himself. He checked his email again. Nothing. Perhaps Ogata-san was right. Perhaps he should wait for the police.

He set off a small virus to search for any traces left by 'hs555' on the game servers. First he had to find 'sai'. Then he would find his father; he was sure of it.

\---

> (10:54:16) **yon-me:** hs555? I haven't seen him for weeks.  
>  (10:54:18) **toya_akira:** I heard you knew him best.  
>  (10:54:24) **yon-me:** Yes, I introduced him to the game servers, and we play pretty regularly.  
>  (10:54:28) **yon-me:** But he hasn't been around lately. I don't know what's happened to him.  
>  (10:54:29) **toya_akira:** Do you have his email address? Any means of contact?  
>  (10:54:35) **yon-me:** Well, you can try hs555@haze.bu.2.jp...he's not good about checking his email though.  
>  (10:54:37) **toya_akira:** Thank you  
>  (10:54:41) **yon-me:** Say, I know it's terribly rude of me, but I couldn't help but ask...are you *really* *the* 'toya_akira'?  
>        _toya_akira has left the channel_  
> 

"Any luck?" Ashiwara-san asked sympathetically when he came to check up on Akira later that day.

Akira shook his head, not removing his eyes from the screen. "I sent out an email two days ago, but there hasn't been any response."

"What do the police say?"

"They haven't come across anyone of Father's description in the area." He massaged his wrists, which were sore from continuous typing.

"You look pale, Akira-kun. When did you last sleep?"

"I don't remember," he admitted reluctantly. "I'm fine, Ashiwara-san, really--"

"You have a game scheduled for this afternoon. Are you sure you're all right?"

He nodded. "May I have the VRI?"

Ashiwara-san passed him the headset, looking skeptical. "You haven't even touched your lunch. Akira-kun, it's all right to cancel--"

"No," he said curtly and put on the headset.

"I know you're a traditionalist like your father, but I really don't understand why you choose to keep using such archaic input devices. No one uses keyboards these days. A virtual reality interface can handle everything you do, you know--"

"I prefer controlling my computer through a command line. It reminds me that I'm working with a machine." He adjusted the chin strap and volume.

"Then why do you use the VRI for games?"

"Because the games are real, no matter where they take place." He turned on the visual interface, and suddenly he was in a bare, dark room furnished only with a _go_ board in the center of the floor. Subvocalizing into the microphone, he murmured, "Game clock," and a timer appeared next to the board. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the flashing numbers: twenty minutes before the game was scheduled to start.

"Akira-kun?"

He turned his head blindly toward the sound of the voice, although he only saw a blank wall. He felt something pressed into his hands, and he heard Ashiwara-san saying, "Here's what I could dig up from the Kiin network. I don't know if it will help, but take a look at it later."

"What is it?"

"All the game records of the player known as 'sai'. Perhaps you'll find a clue."

He half-rose from his chair. "Thank you--"

"It's the least I could do for Sensei. I hope you find him."

He looked at the empty _go_ board and traced the lines with a phantom finger. Once upon a time, he would have waited in a real room, felt real wood beneath his hands, faced an opponent in realtime. Sometimes he wondered what it must have been like to play a game face-to-face with another person instead of a virtual avatar.

A message flashed before his eyes. "<mikhail_bissel> has entered the room." He blinked as an avatar materialized on the other side of the board and bowed. A generic male figure, although his opponent clearly had the confidence to use a real name for his handle.

"Shall we begin?"

He nodded and initiated the script to place two stones on the board. "Please."

\---

Akira always felt a little dizzy after taking off the headset, as if he had been forcibly thrust back into his body. He looked down at his hands, which were still tightly clutching a stack of papers covered with shorthand notation.

> ;B[qd];W[dc];B[dp];W[pp];B[ce];W[od];B[fd];W[de];B[dd];W[ed];B[cd];W[ec];B[ee];W[df];  
> B[cc];W[fc];B[gd];W[fe];B[ef];W[ge];B[dg];W[hd];B[qf];W[qc];B[rc];W[pc];B[rb];W[re]...

The letters seemed to swim before his eyes for a moment before he could translate them into recognizable shapes of a game opening. But he couldn't make out the whole pattern from the code alone. He pulled his keyboard towards him and started inputting the moves, which popped up as black and white circles on a 19-by-19 grid on the screen.

By the time he had finished reviewing all the games--there had been at least sixty in the pile that Ashiwara-san had given him--it was already well past midnight. He had forgotten to eat again. He lay down on the floor and gazed at the ceiling, mentally reviewing the games over and over. It was not very difficult to recognize a style--and 'sai' had a characteristic style--but it was much, much more difficult to characterize it in definitions that a computer program would understand. Akira knew he would be able to recognize a game from 'sai' even under a disguised handle--that deft style with its classical yet creative hands was especially unique--but what were the chances of being on the right server at the right time, watching the right game? A bot or virus could do the trick, but how could one boil down the essentials of a person's _igo_ into a string of logical operators?

His computer pinged, and he sat up to find a notification. 'hs555' was challenging him to a game.

\---

"Who are you, and why are your _things_ following me?" a thin, metallic voice demanded angrily as soon as he entered the game room. There was no avatar--or for that matter, floor, walls or ceiling--only a large floating grid laid out in thin lines of light. The space around him was dark and glittering and swirling with traces of what looked like glowing clouds. Nebulae, he thought. He was floating in outer space, on the edge of a galaxy.

"My name is Touya Akira. My father is--"

Abruptly, his vision started to scramble into noise. He was being bombarded with data. Error messages kept flashing in front of his eyes but he couldn't concentrate on them long enough to read them through all the static.

The voice spoke again. It sounded younger, more human. "Your father is Touya Kouyo? The man they call the Meijin?"

"Yes," he managed to say, in between subvocalizing commands to regain control of his interface. The static started to settle and fade; he was back in space again.

"So, why are you looking for me? Enough to send a virus out to search for me?"

"I wanted to ask you what you knew about 'sai'."

There was no response. Some of the nebulae at the edges of his vision seemed to glow brighter--he remembered reading somewhere that they were the birthplace of stars--and the light grid seemed to pulse gently.

"I tell you what. Beat me in a game, and I'll talk."

He exhaled in relief. "Nigiri," he whispered, and a single stone appeared on the board.

"<toya_akira> is black, <hs555> is white. Game time 01:30:00, no maximum time per hand."

His hands curled around the arms of his chair. He sat up straighter. "Lower right _hoshi_ ," he said, and a stone appeared on the grid.

They both played cautiously at first, waiting to take stock of the unknown opponent. After the _fuseki_ had been completed, 'hs555' seemed to decide to make the first direct attack, as he began an invasion into the upper right.

There was a brash, confident tone to his opponent's _igo_ , but also a subtle strength that refused to give way to Akira's swift, aggressive strategy. He found himself pausing more often than not, about to place a hand before he read another possibility into a seemingly simple formation. Their territories expanded, divided, merged, swallowed--

He caught his breath as 'hs555' placed another hand. There! That strange feeling of familiarity, of recognition.

"What's wrong? It's been more than ten minutes," the voice asked, interrupting the silence of the game.

He stared at the board, replayed the last few moves in his head. "Are you...are _you_ 'sai'?"

"No."

"Then you know him somehow. You've played with him...learned from him--"

"I won't tell you anything until you win the game," the voice said harshly. Akira nodded and placed his next hand.

\---

It was a close game. Akira felt his heartbeat accelerate as he waited for the game room to finish counting the _moku_. " <toya_akira> wins by two moku," flashed before his eyes.

He felt suddenly limp, that old sense of exhaustion after a challenging game. "Tell me. Where is Sai? How may I speak with him?"

"Sai is," the voice choked and changed suddenly to the sound of a boy, not much older or younger than Akira himself. "Sai is gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"He disappeared after he played that game with your father. I've looked and looked for him, but he's gone. I don't know where he is."

"Father disappeared too. In...in realtime, I mean, not just online. The police have been useless; for all they know, he vanished into thin air."

"As if...as if he never existed."

They sat in silence for a while, looking at their finished game. It had grown increasingly complex as they had fought frantically, almost desperately, for each and every point on the board. Akira winced. His own pain and uncertainty displayed on the board in unmistakable patterns.

"Look." The boy's voice was quiet and controlled, as if holding something in check. "I don't know where your father is. I don't know where Sai is either. But I can help you."

"How?"

"No matter where they've gone, they'll leave go games in their tracks. We can find them, though we may have to follow them all the way to the Hand of God to do so."

"The Hand of God?" Akira asked skeptically. "The ultimate game of all possibilities?"

"It's not just a myth. Sai believes it really exists."

Akira laughed mirthlessly. "Father believed in it too. But it's not feasible, if you make the calculations."

"Does it matter? They believed in it. Isn't that enough to make it real?"

Real...Akira closed his eyes. What was real in a game of abstractions, on a network of numbers, within a machine made of switches?

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly. "Your real name, I mean?"

"Shindou Hikaru," the other boy answered. "Pleased to meet you."

For a moment, he thought he could feel a warm hand grip his own.

"So, do you want my help?" Shindou Hikaru asked, a hint of challenge in his voice.

He made up his mind. "Let's go."  



End file.
